The captain smiled and shook his head; the other watched him narrowly.
"You know of some treasure?" he said, with conviction.
"Not what you could call sunken," said the captain, driven to bay.
Mr. Chalk's pale-blue eyes opened to their fullest extent. "Ingots?"
he queried.
The other shook his head. "It's a secret," he remarked; "we won't talk
about it."
"Yes, of course, naturally, I don't expect you to tell me where it is,"
said Mr. Chalk, "but I thought it might be interesting to hear about,
that's all."
"It's buried," said the captain, after a long pause. "I don't know that
there's any harm in telling you that; buried in a small island in the
South Pacific."
"Have you seen it?" inquired Mr. Chalk.
"I buried it," rejoined the other.
Mr. Chalk sank back in his chair and regarded him with awestruck
attention; Captain Bowers, slowly ramming home a charge of tobacco with
his thumb, smiled quietly.
"Buried it," he repeated, musingly, "with the blade of an oar for a
spade. It was a long job, but it's six foot down and the dead man it
belonged to atop of it."
The pipe fell from the listener's fingers and smashed unheeded on the
floor.
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